I found this blog, coming through from the GAAD, via bitchmagazine through the sweeteninghtepill blog, which popped up in a medical story..

What a discovery! I’m not certain where to start, other than to say whoa. There’s an awful lot of women patently unhappy with themselves and much, if not all of it seems to revolve around appearance, money and clothes.

Now, maybe I’m a complete anomaly, but I had NO idea that I as a 45 year old woman, was supposed to spend the last 30 years of my life on the Pill (80% of all women take it and have for the last 5 decades, which BTW, corresponds to the skyrocketing increase in reproductive cancers.. coincidental? I dunno, but it sure looks fishy..), watching Oprah, eating bon-bons, obsessing about cellulite, fretting over make-up, (which I haven’t a clue how to put on and never have) finding Mr. Right, having 2.7 children and shopping for the latest Sex and the City inspired fashions.. Oh, I’m supposed to also be popping Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft like they’re Tic-Tacs.

I’m finally throwing down here, as you have a fantastic writing style and perhaps you can explain to this wild woman WHY, or most importantly *where* these ideas propagate to such a degree that countless women by and large seem to march lock-step into a value system of beliefs, that upon a casual reading, seem toxic to this outsider.

That you obviously see the disease, and have reflected upon it in this post.. WRT your fashionable high-powered friend and the longing to have what she does, yet at the end, she liked your sweater and probably, your life.. She did come to you to confide about her adoption efforts.. that alone tells me that you perhaps are in an enviable place by her reckoning.

So much unhappiness seems to be the constant theme running through most of the articles I’ve hit in the past day. Everyone’s rating themselves against each other or their looks or their stuff and I am at a loss to understand it. Why, when it’s doing nothing but making the lot of you miserable? Is this the spiritual malaise of money? That’s the one thing I don’t have and beyond meeting my financial obligations, I don’t want it if this is so.

Today’s hopping from link to link reading the various blogs and sites has been a bit of an eye-opener for me.

For the record, I’m a 45 year old artist and live in a four room apartment in Portsmouth, N.H (for the last 19 years) with no desire to own a home. I have a cat, a used car, no kids, no TV, I don’t wear make-up, NEVER read fashion magazines, rarely don dresses or skirts or anything even close to what the arbiters of style would call fashionable. (BTW, who ARE these hideous creatures and who gave them power.. why do they get to decide what’s ‘in’ or ‘out’?) I have unshorn, wild-woman legs and a husband of 20 years that could care less about it. I’m also happy as a pig in shit with my life, our income (we qualify for Food Stamps if we wanted to get them), and my unadorned, natural looks and weight (5’8″, 177lbs.. of muscle).

Apparently I’m a freak of nature, no? I honestly do NOT understand the root of so many women’s unhappiness – esp, the ones with so much more in their lives – looks, money, seemingly *everything* – and come to you, since you’re the diva with the words, to help me finger this puzzle out.

Regards,

Deb.